Jump In the Fire
by Fiachra Ochiern
Summary: John Winchester is hunting a witch — at least a witch is his best lead so far — in Missouri while his boys are on spring break. When he gets into trouble, a new hunter comes to help, a man he's never met before with floppy hair and familiar eyes. First in the Fraternity series.
1. Chapter 1

_Are you sure of this, Sam?_

_It'll work. You've done this before._

_That was when I was still an angel._

_We have the Grace; we have the spell. This will work, Cas._

* * *

John lifts one hand and knocks on the motel room door — three short raps — while his other hand slips the key in the door with a _snikt_. The door squeaks as it opens; John wonders if anyone calls housekeeping in this place.

"Hey, Dad."

Dean's standing by the small table next to the microwave and mini-fridge unit that they make work. The table has already been cleared of John's files for the case, and Dean watches a small pot of canned pasta on a hot plate, stirring with one hand.

"Where's your brother?" John can't see Sam anywhere, and the room doesn't have that many places to hide.

"Reading." Dean jerks a thumb over his shoulder toward the closed bathroom door.

"On the can?"

Dean shrugs and leaves the pot where it is to huff his way to the bathroom. John peers into the small pot and calculates whether he has enough cash to leave the boys for breakfast at the diner down the street. They're going to be hungry in the morning.

"Hey, Sammy!" Dean pounds on the bathroom door. "Suppertime!"

John eyes the closed door when Sam doesn't answer.

"Sam." Dean tilts his head toward the door, listening. "You stay in there, fine, but I'm not making anything else for you."

John looks up in time to see Dean walk away as the bathroom door opens. Sam keeps his head down when he comes out, and there's a thick book in one of his hands. Dean practically jumps back to watch the pot while Sam trudges along a little more slowly.

"You feelin' okay?" John asks.

Sam nods.

"Yessir."

John takes it. Dean would have said something immediately if his brother was hurt, in any fashion. It was the one thing John was certain Dean would never lie about — nights out with girls or maybe even injuries to himself were a different story. So Sammy's slumped shoulders and hung head are probably just the kid pouting, not a random stomach bug that John has to worry about.

Dean dishes up the fake pasta with thick red sauce; an equal amount in John's bowl and his own, and a little less for Sammy. John plunks himself into a seat at the only table in the motel, with Dean sitting right next to him.

"Make any breaks in the case, Dad?" Dean shovels food into his mouth like it's going to disappear, but that doesn't keep his eyes from staying on John.

"I think so."

Dean's been more than eager to join John on cases ever since he started high school. John settles a little deeper in his chair and pushes a manila file folder toward Dean.

"Victims were all male," John says. "All businessmen, in their late 20s or early 30s."

Sammy uses both hands to set his bowl on the table then opens up his book right next to his supper.

"So ... lamia?" Dean says.

"There's no body of water, Dean." A corner of John's mouth almost lifts up. Almost.

"Right." Dean just nods and tries again. "So it's not a siren, either."

Kid's got the right idea, though. All the missing victims means whatever's taking them needs them for either a food source or a power source. Dean's focusing on creatures that are known to lure men to their deaths, but John wonders how much of that is just Dean's hormones talking. The boy started noticing girls when he was thirteen, but he only hit his first growth spurt a few months ago when he turned fifteen.

"I'm thinking it's just a plain witch," John says. "I found some symbols at the last crime scene." He reaches into his jacket, pulls out his journal to open to the page that held the most recent sketches he's made. "I have to make a call to be sure, but it looks like some witch is gathering up sacrifices."

"Either that or a harem." Dean's mouth opens wide in a shit-eating grin.

"What's a harem?"

John's teeth come together and cut off the chuckle that had been rising up. He and Dean have gotten a lot more relaxed about discussing cases in front of Sammy ever since the kid found out about monsters in the dark. John shoots a look at Sammy before glancing at Dean. Dean just tones his smile down into something that says, _All yours, Pop_.

"Sam, did you clean the handguns like I asked?" John says.

Sam doesn't nod or shake his head. He runs his palm over the open pages of his book and ducks his head again, his hair falling into his eyes.

"I'm almost done." Just a hint of a whine comes through Sam's voice, like he's testing his limits.

John reaches over and tugs the book away from Sam.

"Guns first."

And _now_ Sammy's pouting. Full on lips-turned-down and eyebrows-together pouting as he shovels the last of his supper into his mouth. John closes the book; it's at least an inch thick and has a generic picture of two kids sitting at a desk on the cover, right below the bold words _Fourth-Grade Reader_.

"Where'd this come from?" It's spring break, so Dean and Sammy aren't going to school here.

"It's my Reading book." Sam shifts enough in his seat to get his legs under him. "I'm reading ahead so I won't be behind when we get back."

The kid licks the last of the sauce off his spoon and vaults himself out of his chair. He puts the dirty dishes right beside the empty pot and sits on the floor beside John's duffle, the one that holds all the guns he doesn't keep in the trunk of the Impala. John watches him slowly start his chores before Dean leans in close to him.

"Are we going back?" he asks.

John does not purse his lips or sigh.

"Haven't decided yet," he says. John stands and snatches his journal up. "Make sure he does those guns."

"Yes, sir." Dean gathers the dishes.

John slips out of the motel room and lays his journal flat on the hood of the Impala. Digging his cell phone out from his pocket, he flips it open and punches in one of the few numbers he has memorized.

"Singer," the gruff voice comes through the line after only a few rings.

"Bobby."

John hears a grunt through the phone line and can't tell if it's supposed to be a greeting or a prelude to a dial tone.

"Thought you were in Missouri, Winchester," Bobby finally says.

"I am," John says shortly. "Look, I need you to look up a symbol for me."

"Why not? Not like I got a business to run or anything."

"Shut up." John knows that Bobby doesn't keep the salvage yard open for business after regular hours, and it's coming up on sundown.

John goes through a clinical description of what he's drawn in his journal. It's a pretty simple circle, as circles go. John knows just enough to know this particular circle isn't a devil's trap.

"That sound like witchery to you?" he asks when he's done.

"Sounds like a giant screw up," Bobby huffs. "Either you got a damn inexperienced witch or some kids playing with paint and thinking they're Satanists."

John rolls his eyes. Teenagers are the most stupid creatures in existence with what they get up to. Usually he's fortunate enough that Dean has a better head on his shoulders, but there was that one thing with a girl named Casey.

"Listen, I'll look through a few things, but I don't think you're dealing with witches here, Winchester," Bobby says. "There's no signs of demonic activity in the area. Anywhere in the area. No prior complaints of animal deaths or lightning omens. No sulfur."

Where did Bobby find the time to look up demonic omens in Missouri? For that matter, why is Bobby keeping tabs on him in the first place?

"Civilians don't know to smell for sulfur," John says. Bobby might have been part of this world longer than John, but John knows how to be a better soldier.

"Look, ya idjit." Bobby's exasperated eye roll is clear even through the phone. "Even if this is a witch, you're on a two-man job, and I can't be there. There's a new guy in Kansas, really good with research."

"No, Bobby," John says immediately. "If I need help, I've got Dean and Sam."

He doesn't need anyone else coming up on his family. John slides the journal closed again and tucks it into the inside of his jacket with one hand.

"You put too much on those boys," Bobby says.

John doesn't look back into the motel window, and he doesn't feel any regret at his youngest son learning how to clean out a revolver.

He _doesn't_.

"Thanks for the help," John says, looking out into the near-empty parking lot because he's still not looking into motel windows anytime soon.

"Don't die, Winchester." And the line goes dead. John can't remember Bobby ever actually saying good-bye over the phone. Hardly even in person, either. It's always, "Don't die, idjit" or "Take care of those boys."

As if John needs to be told that.

**o0O0o**

John walks into the police headquarters confidently in his suit and tie. The key is always confidence. He nods at the officer on dispatch, a radio connected to her headphones as she directs calls, and then he heads straight for the right corridor, which leads to the detectives' desks. He sees the young detective he had talked to the other day, all thin and tall and eager to help, like a puppy dog in a worn jacket with a nameplate on his desk that says "Reagan."

"Agent Fogerty." Detective Reagan jumps forward and holds on his hand.

John shakes the younger man's hand quickly. For all that he has learned to lie and cheat his way around law enforcement, he can appreciate a man trying to catch the bad guys.

"I just wanted to check with you boys." John nods to include the whole open area regulated for detectives. "See if anything else on the case came in."

It's harder to portray just one FBI agent rather than working with a partner. Everyone expects the FBI to invade their jurisdiction in pairs. But John's got this down, and he doesn't need Bobby's offer of help. One of the older detectives — John thinks his name is Polish, something ending in -inski, at least — comes up behind Reagan like he's trying to get Reagan's attention without actually looking at him.

"Actually, sir, you should probably talk with the chief—"

"Wait, there was something." Reagan tramples all over the older man's attempts. "Remember that weird body, Tom?"

John's spine straightens immediately at the word "weird." Anything weird falls in his jurisdiction, not the local cops', no matter what they think he is.

"Body?" he presses, ignoring the way Something-inski stiffens.

"Yeah, we had a John Doe come in overnight." Reagan is practically bouncing in his place. "We thought it was a violent crime at first, but then he had a bite on his neck." He gestures vaguely to the right side of his own neck.

"A bite?" John's been thinking witches this whole time. If something's eating the men disappearing, he may have to rethink some of Dean's guesses. Or he's got a cannibalistic witch on the other side of his gun. He really doesn't know if that would be better or worse. He hates witches.

"Yeah, like from a wild animal or something," Reagan says. "Thing is, they found him right off Adams Street. I mean, that's right in the middle of downtown. Weird, right?"

John's nod is distracted, and he doesn't pay much attention to what Whatever-inski is doing back at his desk.

"Do you still have the body?" He has to see what he's dealing with if this guy is the latest of the victims.

"Yeah, it's in the morgue." Reagan jerks a thumb over his shoulder toward the elevator. "I'll show you."

John leaves the older detective in the open room and follows Reagan past the back door to the detention area and down to the basement. The morgue isn't anything like what John's seen in bigger cities, and it's also empty.

"Our M.E. won't be in until ten o'clock." Reagan strides into the room and right up to the wall of cold metal doors. "He was here most of the night trying to clean this guy up."

He yanks the handle of a door about halfway up the wall and pulls the sliding slab out. John chews on the side of his tongue and deliberately lifts his eyes from the empty tray to the detective.

"Wrong door?" He's found just the right mix of paternal disapproval and the disappointment of an officer to make his eyebrows speak louder than any fake-FBI reprimand. Reagan's already shifting nervously.

"That's weird. He's supposed to be here." Reagan backs up and checks out the number on the metal door again. "Lemme check something."

He goes to a wall to page through a clipboard — because when-in-doubt-check-the-paperwork seems to be the motto of all bureaucratic agencies. John bends over the empty morgue slab in the meantime. A dark red stain hasn't been cleaned from the slab midway down. About where an adult's hips would be. And there's another spot of some kind of filmy, transluscent goop near the head of the tray. John's seen ectoplasm like that, but that doesn't make sense. If the dead man had become a ghost, he would have left his body behind. John chases poltergeists, not zombies.

The heavy door to the morgue opens, and John glances up in time to see the police chief, in his uniform complete with shiny brass "Colfax" badge, enter the room.

"Reagan, I need you out of the morgue," he orders.

John straightens to regain his federal persona. Chief Colfax hasn't liked the idea of FBI agents in his town, even if John claimed to be the only one there.

"I'm just looking for the body from last night for Agent Fogerty." Reagan flips through the top layers of paperwork on the plain clipboard without looking up. "I think Keith wrote down the drawer number wrong."

"Yeah, well I need _Agent Fogerty_ out of the morgue, too."

John plants his feet and stays where he is.

"Problem, chief?"

There's a problem alright. Colfax is glaring at John like he wants to throw him out of the station. Normally, that wouldn't bug John; he's used to not being welcome in town. But now Colfax looks like he's about to carry out his fantasy.

"I called the FBI branch office in Missouri City," Colfax says. "They don't have any agents looking into disappearances out here."

"I work out of Langley," John answers calmly.

This has happened before. Especially in smaller towns where people don't expect the FBI to have an interest in their crimes. John always gets out of it, though.

"The number on my card will go to my direct supervisor." It actually rings to a separate phone line in Bobby's house. "Have you tried him?"

"No answer." Colfax rests his hands on his uniform belt smugly.

John silently curses Bobby Singer once in English and once in Vietnamese just to be cover all his bases. Reagan freezes somewhere in the middle of his paperwork and starts looking between his chief and the supposed FBI agent like he's not sure which side to take. John holds his hands out placatingly.

"Look, chief," he says. "I'm just here to do my job. You've had six men, all from normal, good homes, go missing in the last week. That's unusual enough to get some notice."

"But we never called the FBI." Colfax steps closer to John. "I checked. No one at County did, either. The branch office in Missouri City never contacted Langley."

"Sir?" Reagan sounds really lost.

"You're not with the FBI." Colfax stops just in front of John.

For a second or ten, John thinks about what it would take to fight his way out of the morgue and back up into the detective area, walk calmly out the door, and continue working on the case while also dodging the local law enforcement. Then he puts his hands behind his back even before Colfax reaches for him.

"I need to make a phone call," he says.

"I'll bet you do," Colfax sneers as he tightens the handcuffs around John's wrists.

John banks on his ability to call Bobby to get out of this, but he's already planning.

"Do you really want any technicalities on this?" He eyes the chief, pumping an extra helping of disdain into his sneer. "Let me make a phone call, I'll clear this up."

Colfax spins him around again to glare in his face.

"Here's a hint," he says. "Next time, don't pick a name from CCR."

"Sir." Reagan takes one step forward then rocks on his heels again, like a puppy not knowing if he's playing fetch or not. "Are we arresting him?"

Colfax doesn't answer, keeps glaring at John. John feels his lungs expand like they're suddenly able to take in a lot more air. He smirks, knowing a thousand different interpretations of a cop's silence.

"You can't," he says confidently. "How many times did you actually try to call Langley before you quit?"

The whole situation makes sense that way. Bobby has an answering machine for the salvage yard, but not for the lines that he uses for hunting. No answer on a federal line was weird, but more importantly it gave Colfax an excuse to arrest John. But he still could get out of this.

"We'll hold him overnight." Colfax takes John's arm and marches him to the elevator and up one floor to the holding area. The cells are small but clean, all three of them. A part of John's brain is still thinking of barrel hinges and escape plans. But when the handcuffs are off, he walks into the cell calmly and only turns around when he hears the door lock into place.

"If that number is to a hotel in Bulgaria, I'm charging you with obstruction of justice." Colfax growls lowly, one hand still on the cell door. He turns to leave, and John starts worrying.

"I need to make a phone call," John calls at the man's back.

Unsurprisingly, Colfax doesn't turn around. But John still doesn't expect Reagan to come walking into the holding area with a thick cordless phone in his hand.

"Here." He hands the phone through the bars of the cell.

John could try to call Bobby, but he doesn't want to risk taking up the man's time when Colfax was supposed to be trying to call the man as well. There is one other person who needs to know how the hunt is going, though. John tilts the phone towards his chest as he dials, just so Reagan won't catch the number of the local motel.

"Dean," he says as soon as the other line picks up. "I just wanted to let you know I won't be checking in tonight. The officers here have decided to keep me for a while." Dean starts suggesting he come to the rescue, but that won't work. Dean is getting good at investigating, and John trusts him absolutely as a second gun, but still— the kid's fifteen. There's no way a bunch of cops are going to mistake him for one half of an FBI team. "Don't worry, they'll call Deputy Singer and he'll clear everything up. Just wanted to let you know. Look out for each other."

He changes his last order in time to catch the "Look out for your brother" that's automatic. Reviewing his words as he hangs up and hands the phone back to Reagan, John is sure that nothing he's said sounds like anything other than an agent checking in with his unit. Reagan goes back to the office without a word, though he gives John an awkward little head nod on his way out. Now John just has to wait for Bobby to answer his damn phone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Is that what I think it is?_

_An angel's Grace. I stole it from Metatron._

_So, is he . . ._

_No, he remains at full power._

_What about Dean? You can use that to find Dean, right?_

_I'm sorry, Sam._

* * *

John is trying to get the kinks out of his back from sleeping in the holding cell when the detective with the Polish name walks in like he can think of ten better things he'd rather be doing.

"Got a visitor, Agent." The detective taps on the metal bars while John watches him jingle the keys instead of unlocking the cell door.

Then John gets a look at the man who's supposed to be visiting him and thinks he might be better off in the cell if this guy turns out to be part of what he's hunting.

He's even taller than John is, with shaggy hair that's styled and slicked back from his face like some Hollywood actor. Despite that, though, John can't see an inch of weakness in the man. He walks confidently; there's no limp or stutter in his gait, and he doesn't hold his arms in any way that would suggest an old wound or being unfamiliar with humans. In his suit and tie, the guy looks more like a lawyer than a monster — or a hunter, for that matter.

Then, the man looks at John, freezes in the middle of the holding room, then abruptly turns his head to the side with a grimace and a deep frown creasing his forehead. John can see the man's lips move but can't hear what he's muttering to himself. Finally, the man regains his composure — John thinks he should feel somewhat offended for that — and strides the rest of the way to John's table, holding up a thin briefcase horizontally, braced against his forearm.

"Bobby should've told me it was you," he grumbles as he opens his briefcase and fixes his eyes on whatever's inside.

John straightens, and yeah, _now_ he's fully ready to be offended. Before he can open his mouth, though, the hunter pulls out a stapled pack of papers and thrusts them in front of John's nose.

"What's this?" John asks even as his hand comes up to take the documents.

"Our case."

Funny thing is, it actually looks like a case. John scans over medical files and coroner's reports before he really realizes that's what they are. Flipping those over, he finds another form that seems to be just another of the governmental redundant sheets of paper at first. He can only really make out the Federal Bureau of Investigation logo on top, and that makes absolutely no sense because even he can't get forgeries from Washington, D.C. He looks up to demand what's going on, but the man on the other side of the bars snaps his briefcase closed again and lets it hang by his side then turns as if he's going to leave.

"Hey!" John surges forward and grabs the man's arm, wrinkling his extremely nice suit. "What the hell is this?" He's still holding the government papers in his other hand.

The man doesn't even raise his hand to John, just leans in really close.

"Whatever you think this is, it's not a witch," he says lowly. "Which you would know if you read the damn report I filed!"

His last sentence is loud enough to travel clear across the holding room, and after a moment John suspects that's the man's intention all along. Now, the man gets violent, jerking away from John's grasp like he's a mix of ticked off and offended.

"You think just because you've been doing this longer, you can ignore anything I send to Singer!"

That's the second time Bobby's name has come up here, and given that Bobby suggested backup in the first place, John glances over the man trying to find similarities instead of non-human aspects.

He still looks like a damn lawyer instead of a hunter, but John's posed as an FBI agent and a federal marshal, so the suit shouldn't throw him off that much. Ignoring John completely, the hunter marches back to the detective by the door in a huff and hands him two sheets of paper held together with a paperclip.

"Can I have my partner back now, Detective?" he asks. "I know he's a pain in the ass, but we're pretty convinced he came outa his momma that way."

The makeshift guard huffs a quiet laugh while his eyes barely scan over the paper in his hand. The hunter apparently knows how to work charm and nonchalance to his advantage. John's never gotten the hang of that himself; too much Marine still in him.

"Sure, Agent Bass." The detective slaps the man in the suit on the shoulder with a friendly smile and hands back the paper-clipped forms. "I know a guy like that myself."

"Maybe you could give me some pointers," says "Agent Bass," like he's only half-joking.

Whatever-inski laughs as Bass follows him back to the cell and waits while the detective unlocks the door.

"C'mon, John Wayne," Bass calls, and only now can John see the edge of nerves under the hunter's skin, mostly in the way his fingers tap continuously on his briefcase as he waits.

They have to walk through the detective pen before leaving, and John tries to ignore the way Bass nods and lifts his hand at Chief Colfax like they have a prearranged agreement. John catches Reagan watching the two FBI agents leave.

"Detective Reagan." He waits until Reagan looks at him. "Did you ever find out what happened to that John Doe you got in?"

Reagan's shoulders immediately come up like a kid's.

"Er, not yet, sir," he says. "Our M.E. swears he put it in the morgue and locked up behind him, but the body's not there. We're trying to get a hold of the custodial staff now."

"You're missing a body?" Bass jumps on that with all the tenacity of a regular law officer. But he glares at the chief instead of Reagan.

"Unrelated," Colfax growls.

John folds his hands in his pockets calmly, the federal agent persona easier to slip on now that he has someone at his back the police actually believe.

"Detective Reagan seemed to think the body was related," he says.

"Was he indentified as one of the missing men?" Bass pulls a thin black notebook from the inside pocket of his suit and flips it open with a brush of his thumb.

"Not yet." Reagan is the only one still talking to the FBI agents so far. "His fingerprints weren't in the system, and no one of his description was on file."

Bass keeps his eyes on his notebook until John shifts his weight just enough to look over the other man's shoulder. The page has a list of names on it, and he recognizes at least one from the families that he's already interviewed. Then Bass flips the notebook shut again with a flick of his wrist and slides it back into his pocket.

"Well, let us know if it turns out to be related to the case," he says, like that's the end of the discussion.

"Yes, sir," Reagan says, which pretty much seals the end-of-the-discussion feels.

Bass gives one more nod to the chief and heads for the door with John following. He doesn't really think Chief Colfax wants any nods from an agent he put behind bars.

John waits until they're outside the police station, at least. It's not like he can start questioning his supposed partner right in front of the police chief; although questioning him while standing in front of the police office probably isn't much better. But John can't afford to let it go.

"Who are you supposed to be?" he hisses as Bass leads him down the sidewalk. "Agent _Bass_?"

He doubts that's the man's real name, mostly because no hunter worth his salt rounds would give a real name in the middle of a room full of detectives.

"It's Wesson," the man says immediately. "Like the gun. S-Seth Wesson."

He draws out the 's' as if he used to stutter. John just files the name away in his memory and starts listing all the hunters he can call to see who knows where this guy came from.

"How did you get here?" He's only been locked up for one night, and Bobby should have cleared that up. It's not like John needs Wesson.

"Drove." Wesson shoves his free hand into his pocket with a sullen purse to his lips. He glances at John from the corner of his eyes, which is just enough to make his shoulders slump as if John had slapped him upside the head like a kid. "Bobby called me."

That makes more sense, since John was counting on Bobby to explain the situation to Chief Colfax anyway. A partner would lend more credibility to his cover as an FBI agent.

"He called me and said a hunter friend of his had gotten in trouble with the locals and gave me directions." Wesson keeps walking down the sidewalk, past a handful of patrol cars. "And he said you were working a two-man job on your own."

Damn meddlesome old idjit. And Bobby calls _him_ cantankerous.

"I'm not on my own," John grumbles.

"Where's your partner, then?" Wesson looks around pointedly.

John doesn't say that his partner is a fifteen-year-old with very good aim with a sawed-off.

"I can handle a witch making sacrifices."

Wesson spins in his place, arms flailing out even with the briefcase in one hand.

"This isn't a witch," he snaps. "The victims are too similar to belong to a human who's smart enough to stay under the radar. A witch would go after people no one would miss. There's been no signs of possession, no demonic omens-"

"You sound like Bobby," John says, because he's already heard this rant once and he doesn't need to again.

Surprisingly, Wesson slumps again, his arms dropping back to his sides.

"Yeah, well, Bobby's right," he says. "You should listen to him more."

There's a fond kind of exasperation in Wesson's tone, plus an eye roll that's exactly like the one Sammy gives out to both Dean and John in equal measures when they can't keep up with him explaining what he learned in school. Bobby's just moved to the top of that list John needs to call, because no one but family can get so exasperated with each other. But John didn't think Bobby had any family left.

"Look, I'm here." Wesson drags his free hand through his styled hair, pushes it back from his face. "We'd be better off working together than each trying to figure this out on our own. At least you'll be able to keep an eye on me."

John scowls, hating that it sounds like such a practical suggestion as well as something John would actually do. Wesson just shrugs like he's saying it is no big deal. He straightens his professional jacket and gestures to a mid-sized blue car parked next to the row of squad cars.

"I haven't got a place to stay yet; came straight here." The car has Kansas plates, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. "Do you want to meet me someplace?"

John glances both ways down the street, but he already knows he's not going to see the Impala.

"They impounded my car."

Wesson _is_ right about keeping an eye on an unknown hunter, and John needs to get the rest of this case straightened out as soon as possible. The longer he stays, the higher chance there is of Chief Colfax or someone else tearing a hole in his cover story.

"I have a motel room off the bypass," John says. "We can go over the details there."

Wesson nods.

"Guess I'm driving."

**o0O0o**

John slams the door of Wesson's car with more force than he should. Even after Wesson stretches to his full height getting out of the car, John says nothing. He's just realizing that he should've demanded his car from the police while he was still at the station. Then, he might have had a chance at beating Wesson to the motel room his sons are hiding out in. It's not that John thinks Wesson is anything other than a hunter — though he's already thinking of giving the guy a glass of holy water — but that doesn't mean he trusts the man with his sons.

John leads the way to the right room and shields the doorknob with his body as he unlocks it. No tapping on the door will hopefully put at least Dean on alert, and Dean will keep Sammy's head down. As soon as he enters, he sees Dean standing in the middle of the room, one hand on the handgun resting on the small table. Sam sits on the bed farthest from the door, watching his brother with wide eyes. John narrows his eyes just enough to get Dean to take his hand away from the gun; he doesn't want to spook Wesson into anything. As Dean straightens, back rigid as a pipe, John steps aside to let Wesson into the room.

"Where—" Wesson barely gets a word out before he breaks off.

John's eyes move first, his head following to watch Wesson, who is staring at Dean.

"Where did you wanna start?" Wesson's voice is flat and calm, but John can see the way his eyes travel over Sam before landing on John and fixing there like Wesson doesn't dare to look anywhere but John.

"I've got notes on the table." John doesn't dare look away either, even though he wants to check with Dean and see what Sammy is doing. He trusts Dean to take care of his brother, though.

Wesson nods abruptly and heads that way himself. He lays his briefcase flat on the table and flicks open the latches without looking at anyone else. John slides up to Dean and bends his head just slightly.

"Get some water for the man," he orders, pleased when Dean nods. He'll know to use holy water just from the fact that John's still on edge.

As Dean moves to the duffle by the end of the bed, John glances at Sammy, who's still perched on both knees on the bed. His wide eyes flit from John to the new guy, who looks taller than he already is because he's trying so hard to stoop down over the table. Sammy's reaction isn't that surprising, since John never brings other hunters to where he's staying. John's usually the one who goes to them, leaving Dean with Sam.

Wesson pushes aside the top layer of papers together in his briefcase; they all look like the same kind of official documentation Wesson handed over at the police station. All very well-made forgeries, at least to John's eyes. From underneath those papers, Wesson pulls out three books, laying them one at a time on the table. Sammy sits up a little straighter with interest, and John steps right into his line of sight, looking at Wesson.

"Light reading?"

Wesson looks up as he sets the last book, a leather journal that looks thinner than John's own, on top of the pile.

"I thought I'd bring my own research." Wesson shrugs.

Dean hurries forward with a plastic cup half-filled with water. He hands it to Wesson without a word.

"Thanks, man." Wesson almost smiles. He sips at the water casually then sets the cup on the table next to his books. "I'm Seth. Seth Wesson."

Dean eyes the hand before taking it.

"Dean," he says shortly.

Wesson's smile is tight at the edges, like a grimace.

"I'm going to call the police about my car," John announces.

"What about the car?" Dean's head snaps up to John. His son's pretty possessive of a car that's not even his, but John can understand that a little. It's a good car.

"Police said they impounded it when they took me in for holding," John says. That's nothing Wesson doesn't know already.

John pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and gestures to the door.

"I'll be right outside. You can show Seth the files on the victims in the meantime."

Wesson lifts his head to look between John and Dean then nods and sinks into one of the chairs, apparently ready for work. John waits until the man's head is bent over his briefcase again to make a quick, military-like sign to Dean: _Watch him_. Dean nods sharply.

John pushes his way out the door and closes it firmly behind him. He walks just far enough into the parking lot so that no one can see him from the single window of the motel room and flips his phone open, punching in numbers severely.

"Singer."

John's fingers tighten around the plastic of his cell phone.

"Bobby, what the hell kinda backup did you send me?" he growls.

Bobby huffs in his ear, the sigh turning mostly to static halfway through the phone lines.

"You're welcome, idjit."

"I'm serious, Singer." John spins to look back at the motel, making sure no one is peering out the window at him. "He walks right into the police, convinces them he's investigating with me when they haven't even seen him around before now, and tells me I'm wrong about what I'm hunting when I'm the one that's been here—"

"Seth's a Man of Letters," Bobby interrupts.

"A what?" John just got used to the idea that the guy was fully human, given the holy water test Dean gave him.

"Man of Letters." Bobby huffs like he's tired of explaining something John's never heard of. "Way he says it, they were responsible for keeping all the lore, all the information hunters needed to do their job, and he teaches them. Family business, from what he told me. His daddy did it, too."

John rubs two fingers across his temple.

"So, you're saying this guy just pops up with all the knowledge you could possibly need?"

"I'm saying you don't waste a resource like that," says Bobby.

That is a good point. John got thrown into this world of hunting, and he knows how lost he'd be without men like Bobby Singer and Pastor Jim Murphy — the ones that have all the old and dusty tomes and hand out knowledge freely whenever John calls. It even makes sense that Bobby knows this guy as some kind of expert in lore. Except Seth Wesson looks far too young to be the same kind of research expert as Bobby or Murphy.

"How do you know him?" John shifts the phone so the end is a little closer to his mouth.

"He called me up to ask about a translation," Bobby says. "Said he had some experience, but he was asking questions I hadn't heard before."

Stuff outside Bobby's realm of knowledge usually meant bad news.

"Like what?" John asks hesitantly. He pulls his shoulders back to brace himself.

"Like if I had anything on Enochian."

The word isn't familiar to John, but that just means he needs to make a new entry in his journal.

"Have you?" he demands.

Bobby grunts in a way that always precedes his most disgruntled explanations — usually the ones that have him pushing his ever-present cap off his head to rub at his graying hair.

"Supposedly, it's an angelic script, but no one's ever seen it," Bobby says. "The only hints of it are medieval historians who say just looking at the letters is enough to burn a man's eyes out."

"You sent me some prissy historian?" Interest in something that doesn't exist isn't going to help John or his mission.

"Look, his interests are a bit out there, but he knows his stuff." A muffled thump comes through the phone, like Bobby's pacing or knocking stuff around. "The first time I met him, he recited three exocisms at me in less than two minutes."

John refuses to be impressed. Sure, neither he nor Dean are familiar enough with exocisms to _recite_ them by memory, but John doesn't take Dean demon-hunting, either. That Yellow-Eyed Bastard already took his wife, and he's not giving it the opportunity to burn his sons.

"Just try not to tear each other up down there," Bobby says.

John huffs out a breath that's nowhere close to a laugh.

"No promises."


	3. Chapter 3

_Sam! Did you find him?_

_No. You?_

_I keep getting trapped in the heavenly rerun channel._

_Okay, this isn't working. Cas, where's that back door?_

_Metatron has changed the fabric of Heaven from what I remember. I cannot—_

_Dean, we need to go! Dean!_

* * *

When John comes back into the room, Dean is sitting at the table right next to Wesson, hunched over the manila files of all the missing victims. Dean's finger jabs at a line in the resume of Brock Hilton, an investor at the downtown bank who had disappeared two days ago. Hilton is the most recent victim, and something about him is getting Dean all worked up, not even afraid to duck his head lower than Wesson's. Sam sits on the bed with that giant textbook he probably snitched from the last elementary school John had the boys at. God, he can't even remember the school's name. It was one of the presidents, he knows that much.

"You boys wanna go to the library?" John says as soon as the door's closed.

Sammy's head snaps up like a puppet's, so fast John almost feels guilty that he normally wouldn't kick his kids out of the motel room.

"Really?" Sammy bounces on his knees, ready to vault off of the bed in an instant.

"You sure, Dad?" Dean's a little more cautious, reigning himself in by sitting up straight in the chair and pulling away from Wesson.

John nods and tries to school his features into exasperated father. "I mean it. Get your shoes and get ready."

Dean frowns dubiously, but he grabs his sneakers from the bottom of the bed he has to share with Sammy. The kid's protective of John, not quite as fiercely as he is of Sammy, but it makes sense that he doesn't want to leave John alone with a new guy. But John's certain now that Wesson is human at least, surer still that he's a hunter. He just doesn't want his boys too involved with him.

"Bobby called the county sheriff." Wesson slides his chair back to look at John. "He said there's been complaints about graffiti before, pentagrams and stuff. Nothing that would suggest witches."

John's ready to bitch at this guy. Why is he so determined to prove John wrong right off the bat?

"That doesn't mean I'm wrong." He folds his arms over his chest just to be contrary.

Wesson rolls his eyes up at the ceiling so hard his head falls back on his neck.

"Look, you've got something taking men, and all of them, from your notes, have healthy habits." Wesson stabs a finger at the same file Dean had been looking at. John steps closer to read through the line that's so interesting, but it only says that Hilton was a coach at a local gym, specifically in weight-lifting.

"It's looking for bodies it can use," says Wesson. "And now with the—" His eyes suddenly dart to where Sammy is kneeling to pry his heels into his worn-out sneakers. "With the last victim misplaced after being in the morgue. This isn't just a human with abnormal abilities. More something like a lamia."

John opens his mouth to argue that there's no water to support a lamia. The nearest lake is across state lines near Galena.

"That's what Dean said."

Wesson looks past John to the bed, and John follows his example mostly because he thought Sam wasn't listening. Sammy hasn't talked much about what John does since he found out the Christmas before last. At least, he doesn't talk to John; John gets to get secondhand accounts of what his youngest thinks thanks to Dean, who tells him that the reason Sammy's in a funk is because John didn't come to his open house at school, or because Sammy learned to play the recorder and his class had a recital that John couldn't be at.

John should really know better than to discuss work in front of Sammy.

"Really?" Wesson asks, his voice suddenly higher.

Sammy concentrates on tying his shoelaces.

"Yeah." His tongue slides out of his mouth briefly before he makes the knot. "He said the witch wanted a harem." Dean flushes brilliantly as Sam looks right at Wesson. "What's a harem?"

John wants to bury his face in his hands. His boys are so good, so used to the way things work, that sometimes John forgets that they're just as good at normal kid things — like repeating something embarrassing they don't understand.

"It's like a group of slaves that all have to serve one person." Wesson shrugs like it's no big deal to answer. Damn guy isn't even blushing. "Only it's worse."

"Why's it worse?" And dammit, now Sammy's _interested_.

"All the guys have to kiss a girl every single night."

John stares for a moment at the way one corner of Wesson's mouth sinks deeper into his cheek. Sammy's nose turns up and his lips scrunch together into a disgusted face.

"Yuck."

Done with that conversation, Sammy slides off the bed and shrugs on his backpack, with a little help from Dean.

"Take the bus." John's eyes follow them as they open the door to leave. Dean looks back and nods, which makes John want to tell him, _Look out for your brother._

"Don't run into any trouble," he says instead.

"Yes, sir." Dean nods back.

Sam pauses long enough to throw a wave over his shoulder.

"Bye, Seth."

John twists to look at the man sitting at his table. But Wesson looks as surprised as John feels that Sammy chose to acknowledge him. He lifts his hand only briefly and goes right back to sitting stiffly in the chair, legs stretched out so they took up all the available space under the table.

"He's eleven?" Seth asks.

"Ten." It's easy to correct him without thinking about it. "Be eleven in May."

John really has to stop thinking about his sons when he's with another hunter. He gives out too much information this way.

"It's not a lamia." He stomps across the room, glad he is taller than Wesson.

"I know. No water." Wesson shrugs like siding with Dean hadn't even been intentional. "The thing is, whatever this is, it's keeping the bodies." He opens one of his books towards the middle and starts leafing through it. "Or it's put them somewhere the police haven't found yet. There's not that many things that keep people alive to feed off them—"

"You think it's feeding." It's not a question, but it makes sense and John hates himself a little for not considering that option.

Wesson looks up so far he almost rolls his eyes again.

"It's not forming an exercise club."

John glares at the sarcasm.

"Look—" Wesson draws the leather journal towards himself and flips it open. John peers over his shoulder to see pages filled with small, inked writing. "A djinn captures its victims and uses venom to put them in a hallucinatory world that keeps them in a coma. Eventually the djinn's poison kills them."

It's obviously a hunter's journal, but there's no outside contribution from what John can see; no newspaper clippings like he keeps — he likes to know what phrases civilians use to try to explain the supernatural so he knows what to look for. There are a couple of ink and pen drawings, mostly anatomy and circles with symbols inside them like he's never seen before. His eyes run quickly across the smooth handwriting that details a creature with glowing blue eyes and a penchant for granting wishes.

"You said there was a body in the morgue?" Wesson cranes his neck to peer up at John.

"Wasn't in the morgue when I got there." John almost wished he had gotten around Chief Colfax at the station, but he had to work with what he had now. "Detectives hadn't identified him yet, and his body was missing."

At one time, John's thoughts would have gone to zombies or alien body-snatchers in a drive-in theatre, not revenants or skinwalkers.

"There was blood on the slab, though, plus a clear liquid."

"Ectoplasm?" Wesson immediately asks.

"No." John can't fault the man for lack of familiarity with his world. "It had a distinctive smell. I took a sample."

He reaches his hand in his pocket for his white handkerchief and pulls out the cloth. His fingers brush against something that burns immediately, and John snatches his hand from his pocket, his handkerchief flying from his grasp and onto the floor. A wide hole sits in the middle of the cloth, the threads fraying around what would have been a perfectly normal stain.

"Whoa." Wesson half-rises out of his chair. "Your pants okay?"

John shoots the guy a frown that borders on outrage. He knows what the guy meant, but no man should be asking about the state of another man's pants. Wesson sits back down far more quickly than he really should've.

"Just . . ." He makes some sort of strangled gesture towards the half-eaten cloth on the ground. "Are you burned?"

Okay, that's a legitimate concern considering the state of John's handkerchief. He pats down the side of his leg gingerly, careful of his fingertips.

"No," he finally says. He doesn't even have a hole in his pocket. It was a good thing, he supposes, that he folded his handkerchief in on itself before putting it in his pocket. "Have you ever seen anything do this?"

Wesson eyes the cloth on the floor like it's a serpent instead of a ruined hankie.

"Sulfuric acid when I was in high school chemistry," he says dubiously. He plucks a pen from his open briefcase and stoops down to pry the cloth off the floor like he's a detective. "Some venoms can do that. Not from hellhounds, but creatures, like Red Caps."

The cloth dangles on the end of Wesson's pen like a white flag. John eyes it as Wesson stands.

"Reagan said the body had bite marks, from an animal," he says. "But it was found downtown." Away from any normal habitat for an animal. "We looking at a werewolf?"

"With acid in its teeth?" Only one of Wesson's eyebrows goes up, like he's trying to substitute it for the eye-rolling.

John won't admit that it was kinda of flimsy suggestion. Werewolves survive by eating human hearts, and he thinks a missing heart would be more important than just a bite mark on a body. Reagan would have mentioned something like that.

Before John can think of another creature, his pocket vibrates with the sound of his cell phone ringing at him. Wesson turns away, flicking the ruined cloth in the tin trashcan, as John flips open the phone.

"Yeah." It's the safest way to answer when his phone number is the only one he gives to both hunters and potential victims.

"Agent Fogerty?" The woman's voice is shaky but clear. "This is Carla Hilton. I talked with you about my husband's disappearance?"

The most recent missing man. John places her as the working mother of two girls, both too young to sit in on the interview the first time he talked with her.

"Yes." John rubs at his forehead and tries to put his federal expression back on. It doesn't matter over the phone, but it helps him to speak the proper lingo. "Sorry, ma'am, there's no new information in the case."

"No, sir," she says quickly. "My husband came home last night."

"What?" Damn, if this guy is just stepping out on his wife and screwing up John's list of actual victims—

"But it wasn't—" A deep, steadying breath. "It wasn't really him."

Okay, that was a little more pertinent.

"What do you mean?" John keeps his voice calm and measured. But Wesson still picks up on _something_ because he suddenly looks to John with a sharp interest that makes his eyebrows come low on his forehead.

"It wasn't my husband," Carla Hilton pants through the phone, close to sobbing. "It had his face, but that wasn't my husband."

**o0O0o**

"What did she say the first time?" Wesson asks, slamming the car door behind him.

John pushes himself out of the passenger door, unfolding his legs almost painfully. He didn't know how Wesson could stand it; the man was at least four inches taller than him.

"That her husband would never run off," John says. "Upstanding member of the community, volunteered at the gym, loved his family. Basic shit."

"Right." Wesson doesn't roll his eyes this time, but he tilts his head like he's seriously considering it.

John marches up the porch steps and knocks on the door, a light tap. The woman knows they're coming so it should be— The door opens suddenly, and John suspects the woman in the house had been waiting for it all afternoon.

"Mrs. Hilton." He nods at her like a cowboy. It feels like a silly habit when Wesson eyes him briefly, but John's mother raised him to be polite to women.

"Agent Fogerty." She nods back but doesn't open the door any further. John blames it on the way her eyes slide over to where Wesson is standing, even taller than John. John lifts a hand in a half-hearted gesture towards the guy.

"This is my partner, Agent Wes—"

"Bass." Wesson suddenly darts forward, hand-first. "Seth Bass, ma'am." His eyes are wide and eager, which makes him look like a puppy with his floppy hair as he shakes hands with Carla Hilton. "Can we . . . ?"

"Of course, come in." She opens the door the rest of the way, guiding them off the wooden porch and into the two-story house. She only leads them as far as the living room, with its large couch and matching love seat and armchair. "I'm sorry. I know what I said on the phone sounds crazy, but—"

"We believe you, Mrs. Hilton," Wesson says immediately.

"Really?" Mrs. Hilton wraps her arms around herself and tucks her hands underneath her elbows, but her eyes stare at Wesson hopefully, which only makes John frown harder.

"Yes." Wesson isn't even paying attention to John. "There are a number of things that could explain this, but we need your help to narrow it down."

"Okay." Mrs. Hilton nods. "Okay."

John steps forward, taking the initiative to sit down in one of the cushy armchairs.

"When did your husband come home?" He needs to get this conversation back on track.

"Last night, late." Mrs. Hilton sinks onto the couch, but Wesson stays standing. "It was, about eleven o'clock. The girls were in bed, and I was trying to sleep, but . . ." She makes an aborted wave with her hand, a motion somehow meant to convey the feeling that the bed was too big without the familiarity of another body that had been there for years. "I came down to the kitchen to make myself some tea or something. I thought it would help me sleep. And Brock was right there. Just standing in the kitchen."

"Do you have an alarm or a security alert on the house?" Wesson asks with his small notebook out and ready.

"No, but Brock has a key," Mrs. Hilton says.

John thinks it was a long shot anyway. The house is nice, but it's not _that_ nice.

"I mean, they didn't find his car keys or anything when he went missing," Mrs. Hilton hurries to explain, like she's worried two FBI agents will start suspecting her husband of foul play.

"Okay, so he was in the kitchen?" John prompts.

Her head falls forward as she wrings her hands together on her lap.

"I was just so happy he was alright, you know?" she says. "But then, he started apologizing. He just said he was sorry, over and over."

"Sorry for what?" Wesson asks.

"He didn't say." Her head shakes frantically. "I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he wouldn't tell me." Her knuckles are starting to turn white. "Then he was trying to keep away from me. He wouldn't even look at me. I turned on the lights — I didn't want to wake the girls, but—" She draws in a breath so deep John fears she's going to start crying. "When I turned on the lights, it wasn't Brock. He was—"

Her voice freezes, and John really doesn't want her to start crying. At the same time, he _needs_ to know what was wrong with this guy she saw. Was he supposed to be a ghost already, or just half-eaten?

Wesson sinks down to the edge of the couch, his knees jutting up ridiculously.

"Take your time," he says kindly, but he doesn't touch Mrs. Hilton. Still, her back straightens, and she takes a breath.

"His face was covered in something," she says, lifting a hand to demonstrate. "Like a rash, but it was black, like black veins. And his eyes—" Her hand falls again. "His eyes had no color. Just pale. White."

Wesson suddenly shoots John a look from the corner of his eye, the kind of look that says he's got something, but John can't read minds. But he lets Wesson look back at Mrs. Hilton.

"Okay, can you tell us, did his eyes have a second pupil?" Wesson's notebook is nearly crumpled in one hand. He raises his other hand to point to his own eye. "A black dot in them? Kind of off-center?"

Mrs. Hilton's gaze focuses on Wesson's eyes, sharpening.

"Yes," she breathes. "Yes, they looked exactly like that." She lets out the shaky breath of someone who's just realized how close they came to dying. "Oh, god." Her palms press into her face, covering herself from their gaze.

"What happened next?" John says. Wesson's obviously got something here, but they need to know the whole story. Not to mention wherever this Hilton-Thing is now.

"He ran," Mrs. Hilton says. "Brock just took off. He ran out the back door." She waves a hand toward the door to the kitchen. The back door is probably through there. "I followed him, but I couldn't see him once I got to the backyard. I didn't even know which way he had gone."

So, he's lost again. And now either Hilton's transformed into a monster or the monster took on Hilton's appearance.

"Alright." Wesson nods, like he's talking to himself. But then he leans in toward Mrs. Hilton again. "Now we need to find your husband if we're going to help him."

Her eyes snap to Wesson at the same time John's do.

"You think you can help him?" Her voice is breathless with hope, which only makes John angrier.

"Mrs. Hilton, it really depends on how fast we can get to him." Wesson sounds like a sympathetic cop, which doesn't quite fit his suit. "Has he mentioned anyone new in his life? Anyone at work? Anyone at the gym? Maybe . . . particularly a woman?"

John's halfway to frowning at his supposed partner even as his brain tries to reboot. Then about half of John's anger fades away, because it sounds like Wesson has a very specific idea of what he's looking for. Considering the question about the second pupil, it's a good guess he does. John's definitely adding that to his journal once they're done.

"What?" Mrs. Hilton frowns into her hands. "No. He only teaches men at the gym. We've talked about this. He knows how I feel about that, so . . ."

Her eyes drift to a corner of the room, unfocused.

"What is it?" John presses forward.

"That woman was trying to flirt with him." Mrs. Hilton lifts her hand as if she wants to rub at her face. "I only knew about it because one of my co-workers goes to the gym every day after work. She told me I should be thankful my husband wouldn't look twice at that hussy." She scowls at the last word.

"What woman?" Wesson asks.

"Jessica Drew." She spits out the name unpleasantly. "She owns the bar downtown. I can't tell you how many affairs she's been part of."

Wesson sits up so straight that John's impressed all over again by how tall the man is.

"Lures men in?" he says, prompting.

"Yes."

Wesson glances quickly at John, but John doesn't have a clue what he's supposed to be seeing. Mrs. Hilton suddenly focuses all her attention on the tall agent sitting next to her.

"My husband wouldn't be part of that, Agent Bass," she says. "Brock loves me."

Part of John — the part that still thinks of himself as a widower — winces at the thought that Carla Hilton was going to lose her husband, who still loved her, to the monsters in the dark that most people still refused to believe in. Wesson lifts one hand and lays it on Mrs. Hilton's shoulder, patting it a little clumsily.

"I know, Mrs. Hilton," he says before drawing his hand back to his notebook. "Can you give us the address of that bar?"

She does, gladly. Her chin lifts almost vindictively, and John wonders if her ultimatum about not taking female students has a reason behind it. But he writes down the address, same as Wesson. They stand, thank her for her time, and exit the house, walking down to the car again.

"What was that about?" John turns to Wesson as soon as they're off the porch.

"It's an arachne," Wesson says.

"What?"

Wesson doesn't respond and goes to the backdoor of his car instead, pulling the door open to get at his briefcase on the back seat. With his leather journal in one hand, he climbs back in the car, squished up behind the driver's seat, and waits for John to get into the passenger seat.

"Arachne." Wesson flips open his journal to an ink-filled page and hands it over to John. "A humanoid creature able to spin webs and poison their victims. They can also use their poison to turn other humans into arachnes like them."

John scans over the page, which reads like an encyclopedia entry. It even has subheadings that read "Appearance" and "Victims," with a black and white drawing of an almond shaped eye with the second pupil Wesson had been talking about. At the bottom is, in all caps, "KILLING." Sounds like a pretty standard decapitation, although Wesson's journal suggests salting and burning both the corpse and the head just to be on the safe side.

John glances back at Wesson as he cranks the key in the ignition and pulls onto the road a little more aggressively than strictly necessary.

"You think it's the bar owner."

"It's a good set-up," Wesson says. "Take in lonely men, get them drunk, halfway through the affair, she bites them."

It fits, but John really thinks that Wesson's missing a large part of this hunt if he's right.

"And what if she is turning them into arachnes?" he presses. "What are we going to do with Brock Hilton?"

John can see him swallow even as Wesson keeps his eyes on the road in front of him. Really, Wesson's the one who was promising Carla Hilton that they'd help her husband. He should at least have the balls to face the consequences of that kind of promise.

"He still showed enough humanity to come to his wife and say he was sorry," Wesson says, quieter than his normal fare but still stubborn as ever. "Maybe the transformation isn't complete yet."

"She said his eyes had two pupils." John holds up the journal in one hand, his thumb right next to the drawing of an arachne's double pupil.

Wesson glances over to the journal so quickly that John almost doubts he even sees what John's trying to point out. Still, John doesn't look away. He's never had to deal with a monster that evolves from a human. It's always been poltergeists or shapeshifters. Maybe werewolves, if Dean's good enough to cover his flank. But even those are more animal than human. Usually, the job's clear-cut. Kill the bad thing, save victims — if he can — and get out of town before people get suspicious. Maybe he's wrong and Hilton can be saved. From the way Wesson's jaw is clenched, though, John feels more like Wesson just got caught in a lie.

"This gonna be a problem?" John asks.

Wesson stares out the windshield, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

"No," he says.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I thought I'd include a warning that there will be violence in this chapter. It never exceeds what is shown in the show, but all the same … John is on the hunt. There will be blood. Also, the weapon that Seth uses does, in fact, exist in SPN canon, but it only appears in the pilot. I thought it was too cool to have such a small role, so I brought it back.

* * *

_You're telling us Purgatory is Heaven's back door, too?_

_It makes sense. Dante describes the way to Heaven was going through the seven levels of Purgatory. It's the realm that bridges both Heaven and Hell._

_Exactly. If we can find the door into Heaven through Purgatory, we may be able to undo what Metatron has done to my brothers and sisters._

_You want us to go rescue angels, Cas?_

_I may also be able to find a cure for Sam._

* * *

By the time they've driven to the police station to get John's car (no one's found the false bottom in the trunk yet), checked in with the M.E. (and confirmed that the disappearing John Doe looks a lot like Brock Hilton's photo), and driven (separately) back to the motel, it's nearing dusk. The library closed hours ago, so Sammy and Dean are back on the second bed. Sammy has a book propped open on his crossed legs, while Dean twitches like he wants to bolt off the bed and do . . . something. John isn't really sure what.

"Whatta _you_ looking at?" Dean suddenly snaps.

John looks up suddenly from the Sig he's putting together to see Dean glaring at Wesson, who looks shocked at the ferocity of a teenaged hunter.

"Nothing," he says quickly. "I— Your—"

He waves a hand limply at Dean before dropping it. That tells John absolutely nothing as he looks between Wesson and Dean, trying to figure out what just happened. Without any hint from his son, John simply steps forward so that he's between Dean and Wesson's line of sight. Dean probably hates the fact that his dad's actively protecting him, but that's always been John's job, and he's never going to apologize for it.

Wesson almost flinches as soon as John turns his frown on the man, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But then, pretty much all of Wesson's reactions are weird. He shifts between stubborn defiance and a timidness that's almost fear of John. It doesn't make sense, especially since the man is at least six-foot-three. But Wesson turns away and places his journal in his briefcase, saying nothing to explain or excuse his sudden flabbergasted behavior.

"You need a piece?" John asks coldly.

"I got my own."

Seth's hand goes to the small of his back, and he pulls out a Smith and Wesson pistol. John frowns only briefly and wonders if Wesson is aware of the irony, but that's hardly the most important thing to think about now. Wesson snaps the briefcase shut and shrugs into an olive jacket that looks like it came from an army surplus store.

"Ready?" he asks as if he's the one that's been waiting.

John huffs and tucks his Colt revolver into his jacket, feeling in his pocket for his keys. Before he follows Wesson completely out the door, he looks over his shoulder.

"Look out for your brother," he says.

Dean mutters a "yessir," but Sam nods eagerly, too, which he's never done before. He's usually too busy pouting that he's old enough to take care of himself and he doesn't need Dean watching out for him at all. But John heads out the door knowing that Dean has his orders, at least.

Wesson ducks into the back of his silly car and pulls out something wrapped in oiled leather. John watches him, not hiding the fact that he's watching. Wesson doesn't say anything, though, doesn't even acknowledge the way John's staring as he ducks into the passenger door and lays the bundle down by his feet. They don't speak as John drives them downtown to the bar Mrs. Hilton named. The Impala crawls the last half-block, just in case someone at the bar is in the know and watching out for Hunters.

John flips off the ignition, noting a distinct lack of other cars around the bar, and steps out to pull open the trunk. He rummages through the hidden cache of weapons as Wesson shuffles around the other side of the car to the back. John hefts a silver machete up in front of Wesson, just to see his eyes widen.

"Need one?" he asks.

He really should be asking because Wesson's journal states the best way to kill an arachne is decapitation. But he likes seeing Wesson eye the machete in John's hand, likes the uncertain look that mixes with more fear than a hunter's should.

"Got my own." Wesson pulls out the oiled leather and unwraps it. A wicked-looking scythe lays in his hand now, with a couple points at the opposite end of the blade as well. John doesn't know what kind of weapon it is, only that it looks ferocious in Wesson's hand.

Wesson wraps it back up and tucks it in his jacket, using his elbow to press the bundle to his side. He looks a little like he's cradling an injury, but it's enough to get through any screening system the bar might have for customers. John slides the machete back into its short sheath and straps the thing to his back under his jacket. They'll both pass well enough for paying customers. John slams the trunk shut again and walks up to the door, feeling Wesson close behind his shoulder.

John strides into the bar and immediately stops.

"We at the right address?" Wesson mutters behind him.

John scans the empty bar and doesn't say anything. The lights are on, dim, and he can hear the vague twangs of country music coming from somewhere, but no one is behind the bar, no one's drinking, no one's at the pool table. John hears a rustle of fabric behind him and moves to turn around, his right arm tense just in case he needs to grab his gun.

Wesson's standing like a giant with his handgun in his left hand and his wierd-looking scythe in his right. John eyes the weapons, but Wesson only throws him back a look with eyebrows raised and somehow furrowed, like Wesson is somehow bitching at John without even the use of words.

"No bar is this quiet at nine o'clock," Wesson says. John won't admit the man has a point.

Not out loud, anyway.

John slips his hand in his pocket and curls his fingers automatically around the grip of his gun. He catches Wesson's eye again and nods towards the open doorway behind the bar. Wesson starts moving exactly the way John wants him to, circling around the empty chairs and tables wide enough to keep himself out of the door's immediate line of sight, looking out into the bar area. John raises his gun and starts padding carefully along the empty bar stools, keeping his eye always on the open doorway.

John half-expects it when Wesson spins around the corner of the open doorway, gun first, and finds nothing there. Just more stock of liquor bottles, cases of beer, and kegs that somehow went unlabeled. Wesson edged past the full shelves in one direction while John stepped deeper into the backroom. There's another doorway to what looks like a kitchen, darkened and quiet. Letting his gun lead the way, John peers into the darkness and waits for the sudden presence of monsters.

"Hilton?"

John spins around, _so stupid to turn his back on a room, even if there's a hunter in it_. Wesson is standing in front of a blocky figure that looks more like a mannequin than a human, especially with the light eyes with almost no color in them. John presses his back against the wall to make sure nothing else is coming and trains his gun on the figure. If this is Hilton, he has a feeling Hilton has left the building.

Wesson glances at John just long enough that John knows the other hunter has seen his lifted gun. Which doesn't really explain why Wesson immediately gets between John's gun and Hilton, who still isn't moving.

"Hilton, can you hear me?" Wesson asks, like a paramedic trying to revive a patient.

John grits his teeth and thinks he should've taken Dean on this hunt instead of this stranger who doesn't even want to kill monsters.

"Hilton, your wife's worried about you," Wesson says. He doesn't have that curved blade in his hand, and his gun is pointing down and away from him. "Carla? You wanted to tell her sorry."

Around the bulk of Wesson's shoulder, John can see Hilton's pale eyes widen. His eyebrows go up in a way that makes his face look suddenly softer, more human. Part of John knows he's making a mistake, but with Carla Hilton's face in his eyes, he allows the word "cure" to drift through his mind.

Suddenly, a roar echoes in the room behind John, making his ribs vibrate with the strength of it. He turns, but not in time to avoid the arm that slams into his chest and knocks away the gun that he fires. John has a brief sensation of being weightless before reality comes crashing back in about the same time as his head strikes the corner of a metal shelf. He can hear glass breaking through the spots in his vision.

"D— John!"

Wesson sounds panicked, which is never a good mentality. John has to get back on his feet.

"Uh-uh-uh," scolds a high voice.

John forces his eyes open and slings one arm across the metal shelf behind him for some leverage. A woman stands facing Wesson and Hilton, half cast in shadow from the kitchen. Her eyes are the same as Hilton's, even more weird because of the way the pale almost-color stands against her olive skin.

"The bar's closed, boys," she says lightly.

John hears a blade through the air, but a crash makes his skull pound before he can even determine what's happened.

"Kill him," the woman says coldly.

John pries his eyes open and forced himself to look at his situation. His back is resting against metal shelves, pressing into his left side like a bruise. But he recognizes the wet warmth to know that he's probably bleeding from somewhere near his ribcage. His vision is spotty, but that's going away with every time he blinks hard enough. His gun is on the floor by the door, eight feet away from where he's laying, but his machete is still sheathed at his back. The woman with pale eyes — Jessica Drew, the bar owner, the _arachne_ — strides calmly toward John with just enough sashay in her hips that he notices it. Beyond her soft hair and darkly-marked face, Wesson has his blade but not his gun, holding off Hilton as he swipes clawed hands at the hunter, teeth bared.

Drew suddenly steps right in front of John, her body blocking him from Wesson and Hilton. John focuses on crouching on his right knee, keeping the shelves away from his left while he tries to angle his right hand behind him to get to his blade.

"John Winchester." Drew's voice is half-hiss, half-sultry whisper and grates down John's spine. She shakes her head at his obvious reaction. "Did you really think you could hunt the things in the dark for ten years and not make a name for yourself?"

John hadn't thought that hunters could be known in monster communities. Did monsters even have communities amongst themselves?

The arachne kneels down to John's level and tips his chin up with the tips of her fingers. Her nails, pointed into claws sharp enough to break skin, dig into the flesh near John's pulse. Despite the pain in his ribs, he breathes in and pushes himself against the metal shelves behind him. His chin tilts up but he doesn't have anywhere to get away from her.

"I thought you'd be younger." She studies his face like a beautitian. "But I can work with this."

John hears a clatter from the bar, but he doesn't dare look away from the monster in front of him. The sound at least means that Wesson is still fighting. Or else he's being thrown into furniture.

"What about your victims?" John asks. He doesn't exactly fit the type that the other missing men do, but the idea that the arachne is still perfectly willing to take him anyway makes him get his feet up under him so the shelves aren't taking all his weight.

"Victims?" Drew hovers inches away from John's face and smiles without moving the corners of her mouth. Her teeth look sharp. "They should have been proud I chose them. Y'know, if any of them survived." She releases John's face and shrugs as she adjusts her hair with a long fingernail. John's mostly on his feet, enough so that when the arachne straightens again, her neck is only about two feet about him. John twists his elbow and shoulder, trying not to breathe, and seizes the handle of the machete.

"I figured out I needed stronger humans if they were going to survive the process," Drew continues. She bends down again and hisses. Something sickly sweet, like rotten fruit, wafts in John's face. "And a hunter like you, John, will be very strong."

She's close enough. John pulls the machete out, but he's not at his full height, and the shelves get in the way of the swing. As his arm comes up, Jessica Drew jumps backwards and catches his forearm in her hand, pulling up to stand all the way up. John's legs finally untwist, and something pops in his right hip. Drew's fingernails dig into his arm; John can feel the blood like shots. The bar has gone quiet, or maybe he just can't hear anything past his own heartbeat. He breathes through the spaces in his gritted teeth.

"I'll kill you as soon as my fangs come in," he says.

Drew smiles, teeth overlapping like a shark's.

"You'll be mine," she promises.

She opens her mouth impossibly wide, and her teeth drip like every slimy alien movie John's suffered through with Dean. But then, the arachne ducks her head suddenly as a curved hand scythe slices a straight line above her head. She lets John go to duck the blade, and John slumps against the shelves again. His right leg refuses to support him, and John doesn't know if it's broken or dislocated or bruised.

Wesson slides his body between John and the arachne, and the hand scythe in his hand is dark with blood already. His back is wide in John's vision, and he has to tip to one side to see the arachne past his temporary partner. But the sudden change in height is making John light-headed. He braces himself on his right arm, but his pulse is almost the only thing he can hear.

"What—" She glares furiously at Wesson, but suddenly she stops.

John tries to draw in air without letting his chest expand, but the pain only focuses on his abdomen. He can't see anymore through the light fuzz that covers his vision.

"Your blood is—"

He can't even hear what the arachne is saying anymore. He can't die here. But his vision washes with gray just before his eyes close.


	5. Chapter 5

_The Trials are done, Cas. He's supposed to be getting better._

_Even if I still had my Grace, I wouldn't be able to heal him._

_Don't you tell me that. He let go._

_The Trials did their work, Dean. Sam is unalterably changed._

* * *

He can feel a soft, warm body next to him, and he's scared stiff before he catches the scent of warm cotton and little boy mixed with sweat and a little antiseptic.

_His sons are hurt._

John snaps into wakefulness and tries to bolt upright in the bed. Something stabs him in the chest, and he can't breathe, and his sons are hurt—

A large hand plants on his chest, pushing him down. John sees the long face of Seth Wesson hovering over him, pressing him back into the bed.

"Don't wake him," Wesson says.

His eyes flick down to John's side, so John has to follow his gaze to below his arm. His chest is bound tight with white gauze, but there's no blood showing through, and at his side, curled into a ball of scared little boy, Sammy is still sleeping with one hand on his daddy's stomach and one hand holding that stupid textbook to his chest.

"He was scared for you."

John blinks up at Seth, his mind scarily sluggish despite the adrenaline that had first woken him. A thought brushes across his mind that poison could do this, but it leaves quickly, as flimsy as a spider's web. His head is pounding too much for him to be anything but conscious.

"I told him you were sleeping, but he wanted to keep an eye on you." Seth sits back down in the hard, metal chair from the table, repositioned next to John's bed. "I said he could read until he fell asleep."

Giving Sammy a book is a technique that John has used ever since the kid started first grade to keep him quiet, both in motel rooms and on the road. He finds Wesson in what little light there is in the room.

"What about the arachne?" If he's laid up and there's still a monster on the loose—

"Dead," Seth says. "I burned both her and Hilton."

John nods slowly.

"And the other victims?"

Seth's face twists up into something disgusted.

"All dead already," he says. "I think she was using at least one of them as a ... food source."

What little is in John's stomach suddenly stages a protest.

"I'll take care of them tomorrow." Seth glances at the clock on the bedside table. "Well, today. When the boys are awake."

Seth's eyes flicker to the second bed, and John follows the gaze quickly. Dean's asleep, but he's still in his jeans and jacket, lying on top of the covers like he's ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. Leaning against the pillow, John finally takes in the details he's missed; Seth clothes are wrinkled in very specific places, all the places his limbs have to scrunch up to fit in the chair. His eyes are red, like he's been rubbing them too much, trying to stay awake.

"You patched me up?" John asks, because he doesn't actually want to hear Wesson say he stayed up all night to watch over John.

"I keep a lot of supplies in my car." Seth shrugs like it doesn't matter. Then his eyes snap to John even though his body is still slumped all over itself. "Be more careful."

John swallows against the heat in Seth's bloodshot stare.

"Yeah, else I'll end up owing you my life again?"

"You have kids," Seth says. "Kids shouldn't be allowed to know their parents can bleed until they're at least twenty years old."

John's throat is thick, and he can't swallow. Seth's not looking at him, which might be a good thing since John can feel the back of his eyes stinging as his hand rises and falls with each breath from the small body curled into his side. But John can still see Seth's jaw, straight and unmoving.

Something catches in John's throat, and he tries to cough quietly so he doesn't wake Sammy. Seth stands, and suddenly there's a water bottle hovering in front of John's face. He cranes his neck up, a large hand supporting his neck so that his muscles relax a little bit as he drinks. He tips his chin up when he's finished, which Seth picks up on right away, but he doesn't stop holding John's head up until he lowers John back to the pillow — _gently_, so gently.

"Thanks," John says, still raspy because he doesn't think he means just the water.

Seth just sits back on the bed and screws the cap on the bottle again.

"Yeah, you owe me." His eyes just barely graze over Sammy's quiet form. "So, stop being an idiot."

John shifts his hand to wrap a bit better around Sammy as Seth moves back to his chair. Dean's still sleeping, but his shoes are kicked off and laying beside the bed. John has been hurt this bad in years, not since his service, but he thinks this is better than a hospital bed, waiting alone for his release. He closes his eyes, content and weak and sleepy.

**o0O0o**

John tosses the small duffle into the trunk of Seth's car and slams the door shut. He's still not quite sure how he got regulated to carrying the bags, especially when he's still recovering. But it's been two days already, and he really needs to get out of town before Chief Colson or someone else starts wondering why two FBI agents are staying around after wrapping up the case.

Seth has already handled the clean-up at the bar, although John isn't exactly sure how. He burned the bodies, that much John got, and did something at the police station that made the bar owner into a serial seducer who finally turn obsessive on the Hiltons. Dean says he took notes. John's kind of surprised that Dean paid attention to another hunter enough to take notes, actually. He's been hovering more than usual, but John can kind of understand that. He did almost die.

John hikes back to the motel door, where Dean is standing and watching John as if supervising. If John had stumbled at all — well, he's just glad he doesn't have to deal with being held upright by his fifteen-year-old son. He brushes past Dean but lays a hand on the kid's shoulder as he passes. He's a good kid.

Inside, the motel is clean and packed. Even the beds are made, but John thinks that's due to Sam more than anything. Sam is in the middle of saying goodbye to Seth and trying to be grown up about it. Seth hands over a piece of paper, folded in half, and holds out his hand for Sam to shake. Sam tries very hard, an expression of extreme concentration on his face, but Seth's hand is so large that Sam can barely get his fingers around it. He does manage the up-and-down pump quite well, though.

Seth straightens and slides his closed briefcase off the table. He looks a little mismatched between the leather briefcase and his giant army jacket, but he's still all confidence as he walks up to John.

"Thanks." Seth nods at John. Whether he's talking about John packing the car or just the hunt in general is actually a good question.

"Where're ya headed?" John asks casually.

"Lebanon. Kansas." He slipped his free hand into his pocket and tilts his head just enough to sweep a glance over Dean and Sam. Then, Seth smiles a little quietly. "It's the exact geographical center of the U.S."

"Really?" Sam perks right up, and John can imagine that he'll be spouting off that useless fact to everyone in his new school, once John figures out where they're going next.

"Yep." Seth nods proudly. "Minus Alaska and Hawaii."

"Cool."

"Sounds like a tourist trap," Dean scoffs, which makes Sammy swat at his older brother for being a jerk. Dean swats right back, sweeping his hand through Sammy's long hair. The boy needs a haircut.

"Actually, it's more like a bunker," says Seth, as if he can't even see the brothers batting at each other in front of him.

Seth shifts his weight and pulls his wallet from his back pocket, flipping it open expertly to fish around inside it. He slips the wallet back into his pocket and holds a business card out in John's direction.

"Here." His hand doesn't come any farther towards John, and he can't read the small print with Seth's thumb covering half the card.

"What's this?" John takes it and holds it up in front of his face. It looks like a regular business card with some basic information on one side.

_Seth Wesson_

_Police Consultant_

_Lebanon, KS_

"I've got a landline there," Seth says just as John reads the ten digits underneath the town name. "If you ever need . . . If you ever need it."

Seth shrugs, finished with whatever he had meant to accomplish. John nods once and slides the card into his pocket. It feels cleaner and heavier than it should against his fingertips.

"Well." Seth rolls his shoulders back, looking a little uncomfortable in his own body. "Bye."

John holds out his hand so they can shake on it and get the guy on his way. Seth looks down at the outstretched hand like he's expecting John to be holding a gun. But finally, he straightens up and shakes John's hand briskly, business-like. He lets go abruptly and marches toward his car. A final wave from Sammy, and Seth Wesson is pulling out of the parking lot and down the highway toward the interstate.

John turns back to the two boys, who thankful have stopped shoving at each other.

"Better get packed up," he orders. "We'll head north after lunch."

John thinks there should be something close to Chicago. There usually is, strangely enough.

Dean goes right back in the motel to obey while Sammy follows, but at least he doesn't drag his feet as much as John expected him to.

"You gonna work with Seth again, Dad?" Sammy asks. He's all guileless puppy eyes as he tugs his backpack out from under the second bed in the motel room. That alone tells John that Sammy's ridiculously invested in whatever answer he gives.

"Why?" he asks instead of giving an answer.

Sammy lifts his shoulders up so they hover right around his ears.

"He's cool," he says.

John has no idea where that came from or what to do with it. Sammy doesn't like hunting, even when _John_ does it.

"Cool," he repeats and shifts his eyes to Dean, hoping he can translate for his brother.

Dean only shrugs carelessly as he lifts his jacket out of his duffle.

"He's an okay guy." Dean slides his arms into the jacket and doesn't say anything else.

John doesn't know what to do with either of his sons now.

"We'll see," he finally says, because he honestly doesn't know.

Maybe if he's ever hunting something in Kansas, he'll consider it. He's doing pretty well so far with Dean for backup. But he can't deny that Seth patched him up _and _pretty much cleaned up the entire hunt for him while he was unconscious. Dean can't do that kind of stuff yet.

As the boys zip up their bags and heft them out the door, John pulls the keys to the Impala out of his pocket and dangles them in front of Dean.

"You wanna get in some practice?"

Dean practically jumps in place. John has the thought of pulling the keys up and away, playing keep-away like he hasn't done since his boys were at least eight years younger. But Dean snatches the keys before John can really decide whether or not he wants to. Dean whoops triumphantly anyway and races to the driver's side, tossing his duffle over his shoulder into the back seat. Sammy rolls his eyes like his brother's being so ridiculous, and he crawls into the back seat and places his backpack carefully down by his feet. John has no doubt the kid'll be reading as soon as they get onto smooth road.

John slides into the passenger seat and pulls his journal out from his jacket, gets a pen from inside the glove compartment, and gives some simple directions to the interstate to Dean. He flips to a blank page in the notebook and starts detailing the case, heading the entry with the town name and the new creature, arachne, falling into the rhythm of being on the road again.


End file.
